The Lancaster Sheriff's Station has several "special teams," groups of dedicated deputies who specialize in a particular type of crime or focus on a certain area.  Many criminals work in localized areas and commit only a certain type of crime, honing their skills to become a master of their craft rather than a jack of all trades.

In much the same manner, the levels of training and experience gained by these deputies helps them to notice details and track patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed, and ultimately solve crimes in a timely manner so that those responsible can be arrested and charged before victimizing other residents.

Many special details exist at Lancaster Station: including Narcotics, Schools, and Operation Safe Streets (OSS) details.  Use the link at left to learn more about the Lancaster Community Appreciation Project (LAN-CAP).

Narcotics
The Narcotics detail is much like it sounds: a group of deputies whose expertise lies in the identification of illegal drugs and the apprehension of drug dealers.  Three deputies and a sergeant comprise the Lancaster Station contingent of this County-wide team.  The detail conducts numerous undercover operations in and around the City each year to help take illegal drugs off our streets.

Schools
These deputies focus on the public schools in the City of Lancaster, acting as a liaison between the students, the parents, the schools, and the Sheriff's Department.  School deputies are assigned to a specific school or schools, and often develop a rapport with the student body.  As a result, not only are these deputies able to respond to school-related incidents much more quickly than regular patrol deputies, but they can tell when tensions are high between various groups within the student body and often find out about planned incidents (such as fights) before they occur, thus being able to help prevent violence before it starts.  The School deputies work with a dedicated sergeant.

Operation Safe Streets (Gangs)
Operation Safe Streets (OSS) is a County-wide detail with satellite teams at each Sheriff's Station.  The Lancaster detail is comprised of several deputies, a dedicated detective, and a sergeant.  OSS units focus solely on gangs, their social systems, their activities, and anything else that is related.  These deputies frequently work undercover, and with the valuable information received from citizen informants are often successful in identifying individual gang members and bringing them to jail on criminal charges.  At times, entire gangs can be virtually eliminated from the area as key players and gang leaders are arrested, thus eliminating the chain-of-command in the gang, while other gangs simply choose to pack up and move out of the City to another area.